January 18, 2011

"You can't do it when you're busy working like everyone else, collecting a paycheck, keeping regular hours, depending on the goodwill and collegiality of customers, coworkers, bosses — if you choose employment in academia, it's no different, you still have clients and bosses to please. Avoid this gentle poison by figuring out ways you can mock the system by taking from it what it needs to give you to maintain your writing, and give it nothing back in return."

ADDED: I had a link to a book of Shivani's before. The link is corrected. There's a whole, very interesting article to read!

AND: Thanks to Instapundit for linking — "ADVICE TO WRITERS: Go John Galt?" — and getting me to notice my bad link. Perhaps the trend of the comments will change with the whole context of the quote and the cue from Glenn to think in Randian terms.

This is rebellion in disguise. An unfaithful person who rejects any covenant of duty in her relationships will govern her relationships with the notion that winning means giving little or nothing back in the exchange. She will never get out of the slavery trap she places herself into that way.

Sounds good to me, as long as said writer doesn't take to hanging out exclusively with other writers or artists. Writers need to be grounded in reality and in the doings of "normal people". Whatever the other commentators say, not every needs to have a 9 to 5 jobs with a boss in order to be Doing Something With Their Lives.

As a wannabe writer, hasn't his always been the case? I remember hearing Woody Allen's one and only stand up album in which he talks about getting hit up for doing a vodka ad (hysterical, by the way). He mentions that he needed outside work to free himself up creatively. That always stuck with me.

I certainly know it's exceptionally hard to keep even a basic writing schedule with four kids, a wife and both of us with a full time job.

I also, though, think that any writer who stays unemployed solely by living off the government is a sham and shame. There's a creativity involved, even if that means picking up the occasional odd job (or seasonal work) that sparks creative output.

No artist should be paid by the government, whether for their art or so they can "do" art.

You need to have something to write about. Michener didn't begin writing until he was 40. I shudder to think what someone with this mindset would produce. There's a lot of claptrap and tediousness out there.

"Find ways to be unemployed, doing nothing, finding enough time on your hands, after you've met your basic needs, to wander into unknown realms of thought and imagination."

"You can't do it when you're busy working like everyone else, collecting a paycheck, keeping regular hours, depending on the goodwill and collegiality of customers, coworkers, bosses — if you choose employment in academia, it's no different, you still have clients and bosses to please.

Avoid this gentle poison by figuring out ways you can mock the system by taking from it what it needs to give you to maintain your writing, and give it nothing back in return."

From each according to his ability {fools} to each according to his need.

Sounds like this person is operating on “From each according to his gullibility, to each according to his greed.”

I know, I know. I really am just being contrarian. Partly to neede the Prof.

"You can't do it when you're busy working like everyone else, collecting a paycheck, keeping regular hours, depending on the goodwill and collegiality of customers, coworkers, bosses — if you choose employment in academia, it's no different, you still have clients and bosses to please. Avoid this gentle poison by figuring out ways you can mock the system by taking from it what it needs to give you to maintain your writing, and give it nothing back in return."

Ann's restatement of what she says Shevani is saying has a very different sense, feeling, and tone than the above excerpt, which emphasizes "mock[ing] the system," "unemployment," and "taking..and giv[ing} nothing back in return."

Doesn't sound like it is just about protecting your time. William Carlos Williams worked full time as a pediatrician, Wendell Berry as a farmer, Wallace Stevens as an insurance executive.

"He's saying that an artist should work enough to support himself but make it a priority to have free time. Take your time. Time is all you have."

His last sentence makes a mockery of your interpretation though, doesn't it?

I agree that it's difficult to write when working. It's not impossible, but it's very difficult. Of course, depending on the kind of writing done, working can inspire or provide material, so it has its advantages to.

I actually agree with this. Being a creative person oreally requires a tremendous amount of energy. The processs itself saps a lot out of you. And if you spend a lot of your time doing the 9 to 5 grind you will not have the energy to also be as creative as you'd like. That's not to say that you should become unemployed and live on the states dime. Only that the more time you get to work on your craft, the better, so find jobs that provide sustenance while still leaving you with enough energy to create.

4. Seek Unemployment. This goes back to our Franklinian endowment, our desperate impulse to occupy ourselves with practical stuff, feeling useful, needed, employed like everyone else. This is the death of writing. Find ways to be unemployed, doing nothing, finding enough time on your hands, after you've met your basic needs, to wander into unknown realms of thought and imagination. You can't do it when you're busy working like everyone else, collecting a paycheck, keeping regular hours, depending on the goodwill and collegiality of customers, coworkers, bosses--if you choose employment in academia, it's no different, you still have clients and bosses to please. Avoid this gentle poison by figuring out ways you can mock the system by taking from it what it needs to give you to maintain your writing, and give it nothing back in return.

It has been my experience with writers, and I have known a number of published poets and novelists, that they write. They do not let the necessity of providing for themselves or their families prevent their writing. They write at night, they write early in the morning, they write on their breaks. Now bad writers require a lot of free time, a lot of creative time. Because they do not have the will. Louis Auchincloss wrote lots of books while practicing law full time. Now the really super dooper creative guys will say that Louis was not a great writer, not the kind of writer they aspire to be. Because, in the end, they aspire. They do not write. Because, here it comes, they have nothing to say.

Avoid this gentle poison by figuring out ways you can mock the system by taking from it what it needs to give you to maintain your writing, and give it nothing back in return.

Isn't this moral parasitism? Do they think they'll get such a cushy writing "job" under a Communist regime after they've bled the capitalist one dry? Remember, the first people lined up against the wall by Stalin were intellectuals.

Beanie: In other words, forget all the normal rules that apply to both college and society, because this is a very big idea, my friends. We are talking about a non-exclusive, egalitarian brotherhood where community status and more importantly, age, have no bearing whatsoever.

Yeah? From the guy who probably won't get in.

Jerry: I go to school here.

Beanie: Okay.

Jerry: What sort of actual association will you have with the university?

And what about one's duty to support one's family? Many of us write on breaks, in lunch hours, late at night, but work day jobs for the sake of spouses and children we love. Most work can be honorable if done honestly and for love. It is loathsome arrogance to pretend that art can only be produced by adolescent garret dwellers pondering themselves. Engagement with others, dedication to causes and people besides oneself teach one more than gazing in the mirror ever will.

It's one thing to take time to write a book, but I just spent a couple of minutes trying to think of any writer worth the mention who used his/her art as an excuse to be lazy. Most got their inspiration from what they did and wrote in their spare time (people like the Bronte sisters are a special category, of course).

The closest I got was BHO, and he probably got most of his material from the small c communist.

If you take time off for writing, the time off should be for absorbing and for honing, more than even for writing.

"Louis Auchincloss wrote lots of books while practicing law full time."

There's examples for every approach under the sun. Jack London, for instance, focused solely on writing when he decided to be a writer, and wrote all manner of stuff, for all kinds of reasons, plugging away with absolute focus.

"Most work can be honorable if done honestly and for love."

I very much agree

"Engagement with others, dedication to causes and people besides oneself teach one more than gazing in the mirror ever will."

I'm not sure that this is either accomplished in every vocation, or that this is impossible while making sure to work for money as a secondary or tertiary goal. One has more time to engage others and dedicate to people and causes without dedicating oneself to a job one might hate and would cause distractions. Especially in the US where a good many employers aren't happy with just doing the least amount of work for the basic roles of the job. Those jobs that are, such as retail, insist on haphazard schedules.

So, a person has to do what works best for their goals... but I totally agree that having a family shifts the responsibility always in that direction.

God, Portland is full of these types - "creatives", who never seem to create anything significant, who manage to get on food stamps and public assistance, and who are of course oh-so-superior to working stiffs.

I've suggested punitive taxes on Pabst Blue Ribbon and fixie bicycles, but the city government seems to think that attracting these types to Portland constitutes an "economic development strategy".

"any writer worth the mention who used his/her art as an excuse to be lazy."

I think any writer worth the mention probably worked harder when they didn't have a paying vocation to fall back on. Because they knew that if they wanted to survive they needed to work hard enough to stand out and do something worth noticing.

There could be hidden truth in Shivani's words. Try to be idle, and you'll soon find idle in all its beige glory, sitting around, nothing to look at, nothing to do, no company but yourself. You don't have to seek unemployment; unemployment will find you on its own.

You don't have to be officially unemployed to find this creative time. I've dug ditches for hours; you can think a lot while doing repetitive labor. See Joel Spolsky writing about his time in a bakery for an example. You can be creatively unemployed without being financially unemployed.

It's also possible to be both creatively and financially unemployed. If you don't work a 9-5, but watch soap operas all day and get caught up in the characters, then a movie in which you cheer at explosions, then read a book to see who committed the murder, then your creativity is distracted; you're engaged in scripted events that someone else created. They can be useful fertilizer, but only if you then spend time imagining what-ifs or pondering the science - finding periods of time between instants where you're mentally engaged in someone else's creations, coming up with creations of your own. And in Shivani's case, converting that imagination into text that others could engage in.

But again, it's easy to find time like that in a lot of 9-5s that involve unskilled labor, and even in some skilled ones.

Paddy O., I think that it can redeem a job one hates if one does it for the sake of people one loves. One is happy to receive a paycheck that feeds the family. Also, harder to hate any work these days when good jobs are so scarce.

I have not read the book, so I don't know any more than the quoted passage, but I think that it is possible that he is advocating something that I (and many other commenters) could support. He could be saying don't take on a family, debt, obligations. Live a frugal, abstemious life. Choose seasonal work that gives you long stretches of time off to write. Monks and nuns are not parasites and writers don't have to be either.

Because writing should be employment, and because writing is work, and because you need to pay your way in the world whether you write or not.

Good writers should be able to sell their work. If you aren't good enough at writing for people to read it, or you aren't diligent enough to get published, or if you are just unlucky, you shouldn't be writing instead of working. You'll do yourself and the world much more good if you do something else.

Writers need to have a work ethic. If you can't handle an 8 to 5 job you aren't going to be able to handle the work of writing. It's about self-discipline. That's life. Writing is not an escape from the realities of living.

Writing should NOT be the province of the independently wealthy, the trust-funders, and the slackers. These people aren't likely to be in touch with human nature, which is a requirement for good writing. They can have limited appeal to a certain class of people (which Althouse skewers here on a regular basis) but will leave people who work for a living shaking their head. Since that's most of the world, a writer shouldn't retreat into cloud cuckoo land if they actually want to say something.

You need to have something to write about. Michener didn't begin writing until he was 40.

Judging by the quality of the stuff Amazon Vine wants me to read and review, I would say that rule ended its relevance about 40 years ago. If I read novels, as I do for relaxation, I read military novels written by people like WEB Griffin or Steven Pressfield. Most of my reading is nonfiction and here I find about 25% well written.

I sure hope most of these writers have day jobs. I have one book on Amazon still selling after six years but that was a niche market, medical history.

"What it wants from you is your time--your only irreplaceable commodity, the only thing you can't ever get back. Every minute spent teaching a student or hiring out your talents in any other way is an insult to your writing potential, and each such moment degrades you so that you can never attain greatness."Wrong. Greatness requires focus, but it also require defocus. You will never get anything good done if you do not do other things as well. I saw that Richard Feynman said that he always taught a class; that without teaching at least one class, he could do his own science either.

I wrote an entire bodice-ripper longhand in composition books during slow evenings, while working the 4:45-9 p.m. shift at our little local supermarket's tobacco shop. (The four paragraph plot treatment had a Harlequin Editor asking to see the manuscript 20 years later. Not bad for an at the time 20 year old's efforts!)

You find time to write if you're meant to. If you have to read the "Hand Book for Meanful Authorship", schmaybe you're not meant to.

Unless you're Beethoven or of a similar genius (for real, not just in your own mind), then get a damn job. For your own good. An artist should be out in the world, know the world and the many perspectives in the world. Otherwise you're just posing and all you'll come up with is self-involved navel-gazing which is boring to everyone else. And explains the whole Portland thing.